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Topic: Holy Fire Priest (Read 5402 times)

I love the idea of the holy warrior archetype using his wrathful vengeance to engulf his enemies and have accordingly built up just such a spellbook. I've only had the opportunity to try this once at this point and it seems to work as intended.

--Priestess is objectively better than Priest. Would a holy warrior-ess appeal? ; )

--Four Pillar of Lights seems excessive, particularly with two Hurl Boulders.. Recommendation: replace two with Blinding Flash (or even a non-attack spell).

--Force Hold seems an odd choice: high in spellbook points, and in casting cost as well. Recommendation: go Tanglevine. You swap Teleport escape for Disenchant escape, and it's less mana.

--Aggression builds like this one rarely want to bother Harmonizing anything. You want to make sure you keep your Tempo up.

--The only thing Hawkeye helps is your mage's attack spells. Best replace it with something else.

--Lay on Hands is usually not worth the spellbook cost, and usually overheals. Note, in case you missed it, that you can't use it to heal your mage.

--Either add a Mana Crystal, or replace your Amulet with it. With your chosen opening, a Crystal is one less mana.

--You really should add at least one Regrowth for your mage, and either Leather or Eagleclaw Boots.

Some other cards to consider including: Temple of the Dawnbreaker (so good on defense, and only two spellbook points), Block (Is it a Nullify? Is it a Charm?), Crown of Protection (cheap buff for your creatures), one Asyrian Cleric (low-cost decent Holy Avenger when you're inevitably mana-starved as a Priest), a Mage Wand (or two!), and possibly even an Elemental Wand (to *really* mana-starve yourself with Pillar and Staff double-dazing).

But above all, play what you want and have fun, that's what it's all about. ; )

I agree with most of what Indy said, except for priestess being better, and I would add that you should include a second staff of asyra. The staff is just so amazing for a battle priest that your opponent will likely dissolve it and you are likely going to miss it.

Priestess and Priest have vastly different strengths, with some strategies being awesome for one and nearly worthless to the other. The Priest did get a lot stronger with Druid v. Necromancer though; the Wand of Healing coming out and the value of Burn increasing with the introduction of Resilient creatures. I'd say the Priestess is better with long-game turtle strategies or creature-based early aggression (the +1 channeling being a major contributing factor), while the Priest is better with battleforge builds (Malakai's Fire) and mid-game strategies.

--Priestess is objectively better than Priest. Would a holy warrior-ess appeal? ; )

I've got no problems with a butt-kicking woman, but the Priestess can't light people on fire with her holy light, which was kind of the purpose of why I built this spellbook.

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--Four Pillar of Lights seems excessive, particularly with two Hurl Boulders.. Recommendation: replace two with Blinding Flash (or even a non-attack spell).

Fair point. The boulders are there for when I need some heavy hitting potential and I wanted enough pillars to use as low cost Malakai's Fire devices. I intend to keep the guardian angel and maybe the Holy Avenger (usually a Knight of Westlock) with the priest, marching into the enemy's forces so I didn't want to hit them with the Blinding Flash.

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--Force Hold seems an odd choice: high in spellbook points, and in casting cost as well. Recommendation: go Tanglevine. You swap Teleport escape for Disenchant escape, and it's less mana.

Force Hold is in here mostly to deal with a big flier like Adramelech, which Tanglevine doesn't help with. The Enchanter's Wardstone also helps keep it in play as much as my buff enchantments. I'd use Main Wings but, well, Priest. If there were other suggestions I would be VERY open. Upkeep 3 is a pain.

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--Aggression builds like this one rarely want to bother Harmonizing anything. You want to make sure you keep your Tempo up.

Yeah. I initially intended to open with Battleforge+Harmonize but after some playtesting it just feels better to use the amulet and I never really found a good time to use Harmonize after starting to be on the go. Harmonize out.

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--The only thing Hawkeye helps is your mage's attack spells. Best replace it with something else.

Yeah, my hope was to use this and Dawnbreaker Ring to make 4 dice Pillar's of Light but it is VERY situation contingent and helps nothing else. Hawkeye out.

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--Lay on Hands is usually not worth the spellbook cost, and usually overheals. Note, in case you missed it, that you can't use it to heal your mage.

I know it can't target the Priest. I just thought it would be nice to have an emergency heal/cleanse for a defender and it only costs 1 more than a regular Heal. Although, Heal also CAN target the Priest so that's something to think about. You're probably right though that I should probably swap Lay on Hands.

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--Either add a Mana Crystal, or replace your Amulet with it. With your chosen opening, a Crystal is one less mana.

With the Armor Ward I figured it would be safer to keep the channeling bonus on myself, but if I drop the crystal/flower in my starting zone and they peel off stuff to go after it rather than fighting me I'm either already in a bad way or they are. I'll give it a swap out.

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--You really should add at least one Regrowth for your mage, and either Leather or Eagleclaw Boots.

Well I should have room for this now.

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The staff is just so amazing for a battle priest that your opponent will likely dissolve it and you are likely going to miss it.

It IS great. Usually I get Armor Ward up so they'll be spending a lot of mana to burn the staff. The Priest's basic attack does light damage as well, so I can keep up the Malakai's Fire, though at 2 less dice. I just don't know if I've got the mana to case a second staff. I'll look to toss one in though if I can find the points.

Thanks very much for the input! I've got some tweaking to do and then I'll drop it back in here.

I keep the staff in my Priest build for the nonliving, otherwise I prefer to run Malakai's Fire buffed by a Bear Strength and a Dawnbreaker Ring. Then if I need to hit real heavy/non-living I bring the staff out.